Weds 12th/Thurs 13th - A success story

Another busy two days to report, with two of the current projects nearing completion and a real success story by the Upholstery Team.

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Wednesday

Many thanks to Gerry, Nick and Eve for the photos taken today.

[Photo : Gerry]   Nick is keen to get the new skirting around RBr 1675 fully welded up and ground flat, thus keeping the subsequent filling to the minimum. A start had been made last week on this side of the coach.

[Photo : Nick]  Gerry is doing a similar job at the north end.

[Photo : Nick]  The result looks good.

 [Photo : Gerry]  A lot of effort has recently gone into getting the windows back onto the coach, Above and below, Bob carefully cleans up the frame on this window.

[Photo : Nick] 

 [Photo : Gerry]  The same window being worked on by Chris.

[Photo : Nick] 

 

[Photo : Nick]  With the cleaning up completed, time to get the window back in place.

 [Photo : Gerry]  Dave was also working on windows but internally on the wood frames.

[Photo : Gerry]   Geoff, one half of the "chuckle brothers".

[Photo : Nick]  The passenger's view past the kitchen. The internal frame around that window looks complete. It will be hard to imagine what it was all once like when the wall panelling and trimmings are in place, and everything painted and varnished.

[Photo : Gerry]  More intricate door team work by our horologist Ben.

[Photo : Nick]  Ainsley working with Rod on the kitchen double door (Cotswold side).

[Photo : Nick]  

[Photo : Gerry]  Phil once again busy with the overhead wiring.

[Photo : Nick]  

[Photo : Gerry]  David completed as much of the black glossing as possible on the Creosote Tank wagon, leaving just the very top to do.

[Photo : Gerry]  More improvements in the Barn where Steve is setting up the shelving that was originally located in what is now the new Workshop window area.

[Photo : Gerry]  Looking like a still from a 50s film, you could think of a hundred captions for this brilliant photo. Simon busy with one of the three boot lockers for our changing room. Two of them have now been moved in, but are not yet operational.

[Photo : Nick]  While Laura, Jenny and John are busy at the far end, Eve removes the staples securing the moquette from this seat back.

[Photo : Nick]  Jenny is busy sewing the small sections of the Boomerang moquette, for what looks like arm rests and head pads, while Laura and John are marking out where to cut this particular piece of moquette.

  [Photo : Eve]  It looks like it was for another seat back.

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 Thursday

Two photos showing a bit more of the previous day's efforts. David had repainted the backs of the three doors on the Santa coach. While below the Creosote Tank wagon following his painting is now looking very good. 

 

Alex watches the first train of the day slowing for the token exchange before speeding up again on its way to pick up the first of today's passengers.

New doors have been made for the Malvern side of the 1914-built Barry Railway van ("Iron Mink") 1388. Ian helps support the doors while Steve clamps them together so that they can be correctly positioned with respect to drilling the bolt holes for the support brackets.

 Chris and Steve also made footboards for Tool Van 4. Steve bores the bolt holes.

 The prepared doors and footboards await priming and painting, ........................

 

[Photo : Alex]  .................... the former of which I got stuck into later in the day.

The newly positioned table against the Workshop wall in the new windows area has a slight disadvantage. It cannot be pushed tightly against the wall, in turn making it too easy to knock items over the back edge.  As such Derek made a new top that can fit flush against the wall - problem solved!

 

Ken is fabricating four stands, similar to what we use for the Gala viewing area chains, that will be used for temporary signage trackside.

More new LED lighting being made up by Steve for 1675. 

 Gerry completes the rivetting of the latest window to be refurbished.

 Ainsley fitting the striker plate for the Malvern side emergency door.

For the Malvern (and thankfully final) side being varnished, Bob adds the first coat to the south end bottom panel. The remainder of the side had its second coating, bar the south part of the top half. 

I missed Paul and Dennis once again. Following the Diesel Gala, they were cleaning the coaches used for the 4th rake.

Dave carried on with more tidying up of the SO used by S&T for their workshop, mess room and store. That is until heavy rain put a stop to it. 

 John, Ian and Stu were busy checking our spare wheelsets to decide what was usable.

  You don't get much conversation from a bag of cushions ...............

................ so let's enjoy the view instead, especially when it's that lovely bank of Rose Bay Willow Herb on Chicken Curve that I mentioned in a previous blog post. It's really good to be on the train and I, like many of us at C&W, don't travel on it enough and reap the benefits after all our hard work. 

The reason for my trip to Broadway was the result of the incredible success story of the cushions now being made by our Upholstery Team; an excellent way to use up spare moquette. An urgent email the day before requested all the cushions our team had available be brought up to Broadway as the station shop was running out of them and Toddington Station shop had only one left. That top shelf looks a lot better now it has been filled.

It was also nice to see the shelf units that had recently been taken up to Broadway from C&W and now in use. The new Broadway shop is very pleasantly laid out and certainly worth a visit. Being an avid puzzler I was also very pleased to discover that they have two new jigsaws available - Broadway Tower and Toddington Station. So with mission completed and a purchase made, it was time to catch the train back to Winchcombe.

When in the Upholstery shop to collect the bag of cushions, I noticed that they have two more cushions in the making. With the rate at which they are selling I think they are going to be somewhat busy producing both those and working on the seating for the FODR.

More progress with the Model Railway TPO coach. With painting now in full swing a barrier has been set up. By the time I was able to take a photo, Alex was well on the way to completing the undercoating of the section.

Job done and doesn't it look better!

A later walk down the other side of the yard all too clearly showed that more heavy rain would soon be on its way.

In the distance on Platform 1, Paul, Phil and Bob walk back with ice creams bought in the Coffee Pot Cafe.

The warm weather had soon dried the undercoat, in turn enabling Alex to lightly sand it ready for top coating (judging by Saturday's forecast this could be it for a while). While the sky gets blacker by the minute, across the tracks on Platform 1, Paul, Phil and Bob enjoy their ice creams.

Rain soon prevented any more outside activity, so Alex retreated to the Barn to begin signwriting the Cotswold side sole bar of the Creosote Tank.